Supermom

Before my baby was born, I tried to mentally prepare myself for how much my life would change. No more going to the movies every Tuesday night. No more sleeping in until I woke up on weekends. No more crafting until I dropped. Naturally, nothing could really prepare me for the real thing until it happened but it was a good mental exercise just the same.

As Iain and I move through his first seasons together, I am learning as I go. Many, many things have changed and, yet, some things have not. For example, the lawn still has to be mowed, baby or no. For the past couple of weeks, I have been doing what I’ve been calling ‘patchwork lawn mowing’. I would choose a section of lawn and hope to complete it until Iain, from the confines of his stroller, began to fuss. Once the section was finished, I would take him out of the stroller to crawl around and play while I raked. Luckily, Iain’s favourite tool is a rake! As long as the weather stayed good, I could get the front and one of the side lawns completed in, say, six days. And then start all over again. And did I mention that there was still the larger side and the whole back of the house lawn left?

For three weeks, I diligently kept up my patchwork mowing. I only occasionally stopped to swear when I ran out of cord length (we use an electric mower for environmental reasons. We have a push mower as well but, with just under an acre of property, the push mower is too time consuming. Eventually, we hope to go back to the push mower meaning that most of our property has been changed to flower beds and garden. I think I’d rather weed. Feel free to quote me on that when I start complaining about weeding in a few years). However, once DH directed me to a longer electrical cord stored in the van, I am doing better in that department. Still, once I got the lawn mowed, there was no energy or time to do anything else in the garden, such as weeding, and I knew something had to change.

DH has been looking at a child carrier from MEC ever since Iain was born. I have resisted the idea. I find them heavy without a baby in them and did not want to spend money on something I felt I would rarely use and DH would only use when we go hiking. After all, we do have three slings to choose from. One of my friends has the same carrier that DH was looking at and offered for me to borrow it and try Iain in it for a lawn mowing stint. I still wasn’t convinced. The child hates to be confined (right down to refusing to wear a bib, for heavens sake!) and I choose my battles with him very, very carefully. He is so small and I don’t think it’s fair to him to force him to do something he dislikes so vehemently on a regular basis.

After a short fight regarding the straps and how long it was taking for me to get him ‘locked down’ and into the carrier, an unconvinced Patty headed out with baby Iain and the lawn mower.


Guess what? The kid liked it. He hardly made a sound – unusual for my chatty boy. He liked it so much that he fell asleep while I worked. I thought that was so cute that I marched right into the house and got out the camera, with Iain on my back and asleep the whole time.

I also took some garden shots and you can see the unfinished mowing job in the background.

Amazingly, I also managed to get the whole front lawn with all the side bits completed. In. One. Day. The next day, I completed the back yard. That’s the whole lawn in two days versus seven to ten. This carrier may be a new modern day miracle.

While I was starting on the first bit of the lawn, two young gentlemen drove by and I waved at them (you do that in small towns). I was turned around and mowing another section so didn’t hear them stop and come over to speak with me. They yelled out from behind me,

"Um, do you need some help?"

I turned around and smiled and said "No thanks." Both were wearing name tags from the Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints church so I can only assume they were young missionaries. One of them said,

"Yeah. We were, like, driving along and there you were with a mower and a cord and a baby on your back and a dog. You’re, like, supermom!"

Supermom? Darn tootin’!

Fun in the Sun

This morning didn’t start off so well. Unfortunately, it started last night. Come to think of it, it all really started a few weeks ago when Iain started biting when he nursed. Hard. While nursing. Shall I say it again to highlight the painful importance of what has become my nursing life? OW! The night before last, he bit me once on each side. Sort of a sick cosmic balance thing, I suppose. I’m a nursing mother who has her child sleep with her…up until last night. As I now need to be awake to protect myself while nursing (if I keep a sharp eye on him, I can get my finger in his mouth to intercept his teeth prior to contact), I needed to ensure I’m good and awake while nursing him at night. Therefore, I said,

"Self, why not leave Iain in his crib (where he sleeps for naps and at night up until he gets up to nurse around 11:00 PM and then we go to bed together)? What a brilliant plan! Why didn’t I think of this before (um, cause he wasn’t in the habit of biting me at night before? During the day is another matter…)?"

So, after the tenth time (no, I am not exaggerating) of getting up and seeing to Iain last night, I realised exactly why I had not put this brilliant plan into force before. He ended up in our bed again. I’m happy to report there was no biting but I did wake up with him (when he woke me up, naturally!) at 7:22 AM feeling a lot like I did eight months ago while in the depths of sleep deprivation. Amazingly, my body isn’t used to that routine anymore. How time makes a body forget! Like, forgetting that whole labour business. Actually, its probably a good thing time lets us forget things like that or the human race might not have done so well …but, I digress.

Yes, the morning didn’t start off well. I got up tired and it was a grey, grey day outside. I wasn’t happy about that as ‘they’ had promised good weather for today. The fact that I managed to not be grumpy was no minor miracle.

After being up long enough for DH to join us from his sleep, I got to go back to bed for an hour and a half (thank God!). Then it was up again to watch Iain because DH and a friend from up the road (actually, the friend from up the road did 99% of the hard work – gotta love those friends with great gardening tools! Interestingly enough, this friend is related to the nice gentleman who shovels our driveway. We love this small town!) turned this (taken last summer. I forgot to get a 'before' shot this morning. Blame is on the biting induced sleep deprivation).

into this. And, the sun came out while they were working on it so ‘they’ were right after all!

We received our Veseys berry order (strawberries, raspberries, blueberries and one blackberry cane) this week and DH really wanted to get them in the ground. Now that this rather huge garden plot is ready, I’m thinking of adding onions, garlic and pumpkins. You know, the things we tend to buy a lot of during the year. I want to store them in our cold room. DH will also be putting in his usual tomato crop for a tomato sauce and salsa extravaganza in the fall.

Here is DH planting the strawberries this afternoon.

All done!

Naturally, Iain and Para helped.

Iain checked the soil’s PH and other chemical compositions,

while Para supervised.

You can never have enough good supervision, I say.

Me? This was what was in front of me on the deck before I made supper.

Life is good in the Annapolis Valley. Wanna visit?